Roman Voting = Making Efficient Decisions
“…if you put individuals together in the right way … you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning. ”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind
All teams need to make decisions. Many of them. Rapidly. And often when they know very little about the potential effects of those decisions!
All this leads to pressure. Teams can struggle to move forward absent a good way to resolve the many decisions facing them. Many teams retreat into analysis paralysis, having endless debates about the right thing to do. I’ve also seen teams where people simply disengage, letting one or two people resolve everything for the rest of the group (often just to end the discussion).
Roman Voting is a quick and efficient way for the team to collectively select the best path forward. Anyone on the team can propose a decision, and then everyone uses their thumbs to share their opinion on it:
Thumbs Up: I support the proposal / agree with the decision.
Sideways Thumb: I do not have a strong opinion and will support whatever the group decides.
Thumbs Down: I do not support or agree.
In a perfect world, the vote ends when everyone has given a Thumbs Up or at least a Sideways Thumb and the decision will be automatically adopted. But don’t panic if someone throws a Thumbs Down - that just means you have an opportunity to make a better decision! Spend a few minutes discussing the objections, adjust the proposal, and vote again. Keep at it until everyone is satisfied with the outcome.
Decisions made through Roman Voting are powerful because they’ve benefit from everyone’s input and also tests consensus, defined by Jean Tabaka in Collaboration Explained as a group where everyone agrees with this statement “I can live with that and support it.” Consensus decisions are much less likely to be re-litigated.
The other cool thing about Roman Voting is that it surfaces opinions non-verbally. This is important for groups where not everyone may be comfortable vocalizing objections. It’s also an effective method in virtual environments: you can watch the cameras for thumbs or use the emojis that come with your virtual platform.
Note that not every decision will be resolved using Roman Voting. But it should work for the vast majority of your decisions. Try it on your team, and see if it takes the pressure off. For more on the technique, read Adrain Segar’s short article.
How do you make decisions in your meetings?